Hebrews 6:17
Wherein God, meaning more abundantly to shew to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed an oath:
Open Hebrews 6:17 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- In quo abundantius volens Deus ostendere pollicitationis hæredibus, immobilitatem consilii sui, interposuit jusjurandum :
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἐν ᾧ περισσότερον βουλόμενος ὁ θεὸς ἐπιδεῖξαι τοῖς κληρονόμοις τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τὸ ἀμετάθετον τῆς βουλῆς αὐτοῦ ἐμεσίτευσεν ὅρκῳ,
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XXII. Plato’s Opinion, that the Chief Good Consists in Assimilation to God, and Its Agreement with Scripture
Further, Plato the philosopher says that the end is twofold: that which is communicable, and exists first in the ideal forms themselves, which he also calls “the good;” and that which partakes of it, and receives its likeness from it, as is the case in the men who appropriate virtue and true philosophy. Wherefore also Cleanthes, in the second book, On Pleasure , says that Socrates everywhere teaches that the just man and the happy are one and the same, and execrated the first man who separated the just from the useful, as having done an impious thing. For those are in truth impious who separate the useful from that which is right according to the law. Plato himself says that happiness ( εὐδαιμονία ) is to possess rightly the dæmon, and that the ruling faculty of the soul is called the dæmon; and he terms happiness ( εὐδαιμονία ) the most perfect and complete good. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 6.13-16
God, however, ought to have been believed even without an oath: ( ver. 17 ) “wherein” (he says) “God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it [lit. “mediated”] by an oath.” In these words he comprehends also the believers, and therefore mentions this “promise” which was made to us in common [with them]. “He mediated” (he says) “by an oath.” Here again he says that the Son was mediator between men and God.
Theodoret Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus, The Immutable
Eran. We must believe without doubt in the promises given by the faithful witness, for, if we are wont to believe men who have promised to speak the truth even if they do not confirm their words with an oath, who can be so mad as to disbelieve the Creator of the Universe, when He adds an oath to his words? For He who forbids others to swear confirmed the immutability of his counsel by an oath, “that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.”